about 1185, shares or anticipates the credit of attempting a connected
record. His brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre Latin.
It names but a few of the kings recorded by Saxo, and tells little that
Saxo does not. Yet there is a certain link between the two writers.
Sweyn speaks of Saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task
of filling up his omissions. Both writers, servants of the brilliant
Bishop Absalon, and probably set by him upon their task, proceed, like
Geoffrey of Monmouth, by gathering and editing mythical matter. This
they more or less embroider, and arrive in due course insensibly at
actual history. Both, again, thread their stories upon a genealogy of
kings in part legendary. Both write at the spur of patriotism, both to
let Denmark linger in the race for light and learning, and desirous to
save her glories, as other nations have saved theirs, by a record. But
while Sweyn only made a skeleton chronicle, Saxo leaves a memorial in
which historian and philologist find their account. His seven later
books are the chief Danish authority for the times which they relate;
his first nine, here translated, are a treasure of myth and folk-lore.
Of the songs and stories which Denmark possessed from the common
Scandinavian stock, often her only native record is in Saxo's Latin.
Thus, as a chronicler both of truth and fiction, he had in his own
land no predecessor, nor had he any literary tradition behind him.
Single-handed, therefore, he may be said to have lifted the dead-weight
against him, and given Denmark a writer. The nature of his work will be
discussed presently.




LIFE OF SAXO.